album review: 'KICK ii, KicK iii, kick iiii, kiCK iiiii' by arca

I’ve been reviewing Arca since 2014 - and to be completely honest, I’m not sure I’ve liked a single review I’ve made of her work.

Now a major part of all this is because I don’t think I’ve ever fallen head over heels for an Arca album - I liked 2015’s Mutant a lot, and I absolutely respect her brand of jarring, boundary pushing experimentation in electronic music, especially in how she’s bent time signatures and textures while in recent years picking up a sharper dance element that’s got a borderline pop sensibility. But I’ve never been wowed by her vocals or her songwriting, the albums have felt really spotty, and while a lot of the approach to trans identity and sexual provocation has been interesting, it’s never fully hit for me in a way that matches the critical acclaim or what the diehard fanbase have embraced. More to the point, in the process of revisiting KiCk i before this review, I found myself wondering that with the embrace of more conventional structures that her peers were catching up to her sound,, especially in hyperpop, or maybe it was just the influence of more pop collaborators entering the room. I think my frustration comes with feeling that I get what Arca is trying to do, but I feel a little at a distance from the emotional punch that her fans have described, at least outside of individual songs, which I think has left my reviews feeling more incomplete than I’d like

But if there’s a way to say you’re still going to stay ahead of the curve, this might be the way to do it: stacking four album releases within days of each other, which to me screamed both flooding of the market and trying to get out a contract with XL. I was skeptical of this immediately - not just because of some of the collaborations, but also the open question of quality control and whether a better idea would be streamlining this all into one transcendent album - but if they were all truly distinct and interesting, I was willing to give this a proper chance… so what did we get in the Kick series from ii to iiiii?

Honestly… when it comes to more than one project released in rapid succession, my belief is normally that you’re going to get a lot of filler and ergo it’d make sense to streamline multiple mixed to good albums into something great… and yet I’m not sure that would be exactly viable when it comes to Arca with these four albums in the kick series, because despite having a lot of Arca’s traditional hallmarks and sounds for better and worse, they are all different in their own way, where mashing all four of them into their best moments might have still wound up a mess. But on the other hand, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that especially in comparison to her best work, Arca’s sound still isn’t resonating as great across a full project for me no matter how many different styles she tries, mostly because these albums feel increasingly like fragments of half-formed ideas that should coalesce into way more than they do. It also means that for reviewing this, I’m going to try and segment this to accommodate each album in sequence, given that there are some persistent themes of transformation in the iconography, and each project is trying - somewhat - to do their own thing.

So, starting with KICK ii… unsurprisingly it’s the one that feels like the most natural continuation of what was begun on KiCk i, leaning into the modern reggaeton and Latin elements with more of a defined, rubbery rollick to the textured grooves that build the most mainstream-accessible tones that Arca has ever had - and if you’re not convinced of that, there’s a Sia collab at the very end to prove it and how her greyscale approach to mainstream pop can overpower even the weirdest production, especially as this is leftover from 2013 - to say nothing about the pernicious hedonism, horniness, and kinkn that runs rampant across this thing. There are elements that still frustrate me - the percussion mixing varies wildly in quality, the pitch-shifted chipmunk vocals are less of a feature but they are still here getting on my nerves with every metallic hyperpop shift, and the momentum flags hard after the first third of the album as she breaks into creaking experimentation that blows apart any shred of a foundation for jagged, shambling synthwork that might be considered an intriguing mutation to anyone who didn’t hear her approach these sounds better six or so years ago. I get how to an audience only used to the bangers these sound design experiments might be completely unfamiliar, but between the shrill metallic fractures, vocal snippets chopped to ribbons and broken time signatures, a lot of this isn’t new to me, and the only one that really comes together is the blubbery bass of ‘Femme’. And even with the intended bangers on the first third, I can’t say any of them rise to ‘KLK’ from last year. And again, it’s not like these lyrical themes haven’t been explored before either, and tack on the songs that were intended for the previous project showing up here… well, it feels like a sequel, for better and worse.

But what about KicK iii, which many have highlighted as Arca’s best of this series, a slice of deconstructed club that leans heavily on glitch and dabbles with witch house? Well, it seems to be taking more chances, that’s for sure: the warping metallic grain of synths, the more isolated bass and percussion that stutters and contorts across the mix as she twists samples of her earliest work into something in the rough ballpark to a stable groove, and where if her previous album was all about the accessible empowerment of her queer audience, this is about whipping them into a single mass at a frenzied pitch, with writing that absolutely leans into more uncanny, sexually ravenous, consuming hunger, which occasionally pushes into some conceptually nifty territory like on the murderous fucking of ‘Electra Rex’, and I like the Perfume Genius-esque electroacoustic romance of ending with ‘Joya’. And yet, while I can recognize the experimentation, many of my frustrations with Arca haven’t faded as much as I’d have hoped - the lyrical flexes could do with a bit more detail on cuts like ‘Señorita’ where it leans a little heavier than it should on ‘relevance’, or how ‘Intimate Fool’ tries to flip ‘I pity the fool’ and it just doesn’t work, the album feels front-loaded before the second half feels a bit directionless, the mix balance is weird, where the melody is often submerged in fractured texture that can leave the mixes feeling oddly bare of tone, and while the low-end has presence, it never quite drives the compositions or feels like its focal point in comparison with other obtrusive elements, like that flat monotonous click on ‘Fiera’ or the gravelly chewing across ‘Rubberneck’. And then there’s the chipmunk vocals back in earnest, in all of their shrill, hyperpop exuberance… and they shove me actively out of the experience every time - it’s not even that they’re ‘too abrasive’ or challenging, given that they’re all over the brand of hyperpop Arca is pulling from, it’s just a frequency I’ve never liked, especially given how metallic and contorted they are. And that leaves me frustrated with this, because I completely get why folks really like this or consider it some of Arca’s best work to date, but it’s not clicking and honestly, I might wind up liking the stabilized driving grooves of KICK ii - at least there’s less chipmunk vocals.

Okay, but what about kick iiii, which seems to be regarded as the red-haired stepchild of the kick releases, as the most formless and underwhelming of the group despite guest stars including Shirley Manson, Planningtorock, No Bra, and electroacoustic producer Oliver Coates? Well, I certainly get why kick iiii is getting the least attention: the mood is generally more somber and ethereal, leaning heavily of fractured, sandy synth patches with slower grooves and percussion that feels underpowered, half-heard autotuned crooning that barely bothers to stay on-key and let’s not forget the chipmunk vocals back in earnest and fitting less away from the hyperpop gloss, with even few hooks to boot. And more than ever it feels like this album is trying to reach a more tender, vulnerable place amidst the rumble from the last project, reassemble itself into something new and honest, unconcerned with flash and icy cool… but the songs wind up feeling more like fragments of ideas than fully composed, where I understand the intended trembling grasps for acceptance and solace in whatever form Arca chooses, but the presentation feels a lot muddier whenever she tries to integrate a guitar or bass, especially when the mix is as rough as it is on a cut like ‘Hija’. It definitely highlights that whenever Arca gets away from her wilder experimentation with song structure and texture towards something more organic, it can feel more slipshod and melodically undercooked, even if you get a cool moment like ‘Alien Inside’ with Shirley Manson and those tinny, cycling guitars, or the attempted swell on ‘Lost Woman Found’. To make an odd comparison, even if I don’t like all of the stylistic deviations and I’m not remotely surprised it’s been dismissed, like with Adele’s 30 I think this is the album that Arca made most for herself in a therapeutic mindset, and paradoxically there’s a part of me that respects it a little more for that vulnerability, even if the execution of it all makes me not want to revisit it any time soon.

So okay, what about kiCK iiiii, the neoclassical / electronic blend preceded by the elegant, autotuned splash of ‘Paw’ on kick iiii and if not for KicK iii was highlighted as Arca’s greatest achievement to date, reaching her final, most self-assured form in the transformation, where it is now clear she is ready to love and be loved? Well, if there was a project that pushed me to consider this series of albums as a whole from a structural standpoint, it’s probably this one: it has the most songs previously released from her Patreon mixtapes, it has the most instrumental passages and runs the longest in breaking over forty minutes, and if the ASMR opening doesn’t throw you, the complete lack of stabilizing hooks or groove might as well do it. It’s not a project that feels like leftovers so much as one that made me ponder if streamlining these four albums into a double album with sharper pacing might have helped, or at least not leaving your longest and slowest project until the very end, with all of its spare synth twinkles, rounded electroacoustic plucks, solitary keyboards, and the occasional shuffle of clunky, faded percussion, outside of the bladed closing track that honestly sounds like it belongs on one of the other kick albums. None of which, of course, remotely compliment any return of metallic chipmunk vocals - if anything they feel the most jarring out of place yet without anything in the mix to support them - but to be honest I’m not sure any of these frail melodies are strong enough to support these compositions unless you’re already emotionally invested in Arca’s transformative narrative, for which despite putting a lot of time into these four albums I still unfortunately feel at a distance. Not that I can’t grasp the emotions that this album - or indeed the series of albums - is trying to evoke, or that there aren’t pretty or evocative moments like on ‘Ether’ or ‘La Infinita’ or ‘Tierno’, but it just never quite crystallizes into more than the sum of its scattered parts.

…which might as well sum up how I feel about the rest of the kick series. Let me stress that I respect her experimentation, I appreciate the arc that she attempted to construct over four projects, and just how wildly diverse but artistically consistent she was here - all of these albums are distinct with their own sounds and textures, but you’d know they’re Arca projects without question. But without much in the way of standout tracks, it’s hard to escape the feeling that it’s not adding to more of that emotional resonance, even outside of the fact I’m not at all her target audience. There’s a lot of textural decisions that just don’t click, all of these projects flag in momentum and can feel weirdly undercooked in odd patches, lyrically there are evocative ideas but rarely developed into more, and by the end I found myself wondering just how much those outside the diehard fanbase will take in an oversaturation of her material - the intentions are ambitious, but does the execution add to more beyond pieces, and does the experimentation really stand out when within hyperpop, deconstructed house, ambient music, and electroacoustic her peers have caught up? These albums feel like a splatter painting of ideas and if you’re enamoured by how evocative the colours are, this’ll enrapture you - to me, I’m still just lukewarm, and eight albums in I’m not sure if that’s going to change. On average this is a light 6/10 for the four of them… folks, trust me when I say I did the work, and I did want to like this more.